Reposted from Texas State Representative, attorney, activist #JolandaJones:
💔🕯️THIS IS NOT NEW. THIS IS AMERICA. 🕯️💔
As I wake up this Sunday morning watching the news and social media, I see some Americans stunned by the murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti — calling it “unheard of” and “unbelievable.” For Black people, this is not new. This country has a long, brutal history of government-sanctioned violence against us, and Black people have lived this since the very day we were trafficked here hundreds of years ago. 😔🖤 This ain’t new.
The reason I believe this country has devolved — and I mean devolved — back toward the spirit of the Jim Crow South is because, collectively, white America turned its eyes away from brutality against Black people. Brown communities have suffered too, but historically, violently, and publicly, Black people have borne the greatest weight of this cruelty.
I recently spoke with a white gentleman who was deeply upset about Renée Good’s murder. As he should be. He told me what made it so “disrespectful” was that she was shot in the face — as if some murders are respectful and others are not. And I remember thinking how telling that was, because Black people have been shot in the face since there have been guns and Black people in this country. I understood his shock, because it hadn’t happened to him before. But for us, this isn’t new. The very fact that the government murdered her is what is disrespectful.
From the moment Black people were kidnapped, trafficked, and brought here in chains, we have been murdered in every disrespectful way imaginable.
We were packed into boats like sardines. The Atlantic Ocean is littered with the bones of enslaved people — people thrown overboard because they were dead, and people who chose death rather than be trafficked to America.
Black men were castrated and their body parts kept in jars as trophies. Black people were covered in honey and left for bees to sting them to death before being lynched. Lynchings were not hidden. They were a sport. People brought their families. They took pictures. They screamed and cheered like they were at a football game while Black bodies hung from trees. We were drawn and quartered. Mauled by dogs. Hosed in the streets. Hung from trees. Shot, burned, beaten, planted with weapons, and blamed for our own deaths.
Our families were intentionally decimated — fathers taken from homes, mothers taken from children, children taken from parents, families separated and sold apart. We were blown up in churches. Birmingham was not an anomaly. Black children were not spared. They were targets too.
We were assassinated. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm X. Medgar Evers. Our leaders were hunted down. Silenced. Murdered.
Every way imaginable that a human being can be murdered — that has been our history.
This is not new. This is American history. 🕯️😔
And once they murder you, they then vilify you.
They make up things about you. They create fiction. They turn you into the villain when that is literally not the truth — it is an absolute lie. They try to murder your reputation after they have murdered your body. Even now, in a world with smartphones and body cameras that can capture what actually happened, we still see the government invent narratives and spread lies. That, too, is the history of Black people.
We have literally been made into the boogeyman of America. And many white people buy into it. And because white supremacy is so deeply rooted here, other people buy into it too — especially the lie about Black men.
And part of the reason the abject subjugation of Black people has been so successful is infiltration. People who look exactly like us have been used to help carry it out. The “Stevens” from Django Unchained have existed in real life. They have allowed it. Facilitated it. Protected it.
And this is also where we need to talk about something else: white-supremacy-adjacent thinking and behavior. Because it does not start with murder. Most people don’t wake up one day and start killing. They graduate to it. It starts with little thoughts. Little beliefs. Little exclusions. Little justifications. Little protections. And then those thoughts turn into actions. And then actions turn into policies. And then policies turn into violence.
This is where complicity lives.
This is where the “Stevens” live right now too.
And I see it even in the political arena. Since being elected, I have noticed how often Black people bring white people into Black churches — churches that are sacred to us — because white people cannot access those spaces on their own. And they are introduced as “good white people.” Even when some of those same people are actively suing to remove Black people, including Black women, from the ballot.
But you don’t see the reverse.
The white community does not bring Black people into their churches politically.
That is being unequally yoked.
I grew up being taught not to put myself in situations where I am not equally yoked. And yet politically, Black people are constantly unequally yoked. White people expect access to our spaces, our trust, our institutions, our labor, our loyalty — but do not offer us the same in return. They expect things from us that they literally will not give to us.
And when we accept that imbalance, we are not just being used. We are helping to maintain the very system that devalues us.
Because the moment you accept that one group of people is more important, more human, or more deserving than another, you better hope, wish, and pray that you are chosen to be in the elite clique.
And let’s be clear: ICE has become like Trump’s mall cops who have lost their minds. Proud Boys. Modern-day KKK in uniforms. This country is replete with examples of the government believing certain groups aren’t entitled to civil rights — and Black people are target number one. And whether people realize it or not, we are all “others” to this system.
And if I haven’t learned anything from what has happened with Renée Good and Alex Pretti, it is this: for the first time in all my years on this earth, I see where white people are seeing — that actually could be us. And that realization is creating empathy. The question is whether that empathy will stop at them, or whether it will translate to Black people, brown people, and all the others in their lives.
When we have told these stories, people said they were “one-offs.” Isolated. Exaggerated. Not really how it is. But this is how it has been. And this is how it still is.
And there is another distinction people often ignore. Many immigrants came to this country seeing it as a land of opportunity, leaving somewhere they believed was worse. Black people, for the most part, were kidnapped and trafficked here. We did not come seeking the American dream — we were forced here to be enslaved and to build this economy for free. That reality shapes everything.
Even today, it shows up in smaller ways — and small things grow into big things. You see it in who is allowed access, grace, and opportunity. You see it in something as basic as running for office. All over this country, people are outraged that Black women even dare to run. As a Black woman, I see it constantly. We are not asking for anything special. We are asking for the same chance to compete for life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and justice. So when someone is offended by a Black woman filing to run, that tells us exactly how they see Black people, and Black women, in this country.
I was raised at SHAPE Community Center, where they taught us we are a community of interdependence — there is no me without you, no you without me. If it can happen to me, it can happen to you. And if something is done to one of us, all of us should be protecting each other, because very shortly thereafter, it can come for you.
That is why some people are shocked now. Because it hasn’t happened to them before. And many were okay as long as it wasn’t happening to them.
I was also raised to believe you judge a society not by how the powerful live, but by how the least, the last, and the lost live. By that standard, America fails. We place enormous value on whiteness, power, and money, and far too little on humanity and happiness — even though the Constitution promises life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I hope Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti were not murdered in vain. And I use that word intentionally — murdered. Because “taken” is too gentle. Too many Black lives have been murdered in this country with no outrage at all. None. 😔🖤
My grandmother taught me something simple: we all bleed the same. If a rich person is shot and a poor person is shot the same way, left to nothing else, they die the same way. A life is a life is a life. None of us choose how we are born, what we look like, or where we start. So why should color determine whose murder matters? Why should one life be grieved publicly while thousands of others are dismissed?
So here is the real question: moving forward, will you fight just as hard when government violence happens to people who don’t look like you? Will you take action — not posts, not condolences — real action — when people are murdered, and when opportunities are murdered, and when access to housing, healthcare, safety, dignity, and joy are systematically denied?
I would challenge you to truly examine how you view Black people and anyone who is not like you. Because it is not right. It has never been right.
If you are outraged today, be outraged tomorrow. And the day after that. Because when one group’s humanity is taken, the line is only moving closer to yours.
Protest alone is not going to save us. We’ve been protesting for centuries. And while protest is important, pain alone does not move power.
We have to vote. Every time. In every election. Local, state, and federal. We have to remove people who believe some lives don’t deserve civil rights.
And we have to apply economic pressure. They don’t it when we “murder” their economic prosperity. History shows that real change happens when money is disrupted. When corporations lose profits. When institutions feel it in their pocketbooks. That’s when those in power start listening.
I hope we can use the government-sanctioned murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti to change this country — to make sure we don’t sit still when anyone is murdered by the government. Protest, yes. But also vote. And organize economically.
Just my thoughts this Sunday. 🕯️💔
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